I love Gothic stories and since I had never read a LeFanu story before, I was very excited to dive into this collection. And I was not disappointed at all! While there were some stories that I preferred over others, this collection was overall really good. Firstly, I really enjoyed LeFanu’s writing style. His stories were both very atmospheric and delightfully creepy. Also, I loved how completely wacky some of the plots of his stories were, while also conveying the sense of dread that you’d look for in Gothic stories. I mean, the first story in this collection is about an evil monkey, of all things! And yet, it works, largely due to the writing skills of LeFanu.